Articles authored by Sonu Varghese

Kevin Warsh sat before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday for the start of his confirmation hearings as the next Chair of the Federal Reserve. He sidestepped most of the political gotchas, reiterated his commitment to Fed independence, and outlined what amounts to a reform agenda: replacing the Fed’s inflation models, shrinking the balance sheet, …

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit new all-time highs last week, and as our friend Sam Ro wrote on his substack (T’ker), this isn’t sitting well with many people. There’s also a steady stream of commentary along the lines of “this doesn’t make sense” and “risk assets are detached from reality.” Or that markets are …

Consumer sentiment has collapsed irrespective of which metric you look at. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index just crashed to the lowest level in the survey’s history – even below what we saw during the depths of the Great Financial Crisis in 2008-2009, Covid in April-May 2020, and even the stagflationary 1970s. Surely things …

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Middle East crisis has sent oil prices soaring, with the impact immediately felt on gasoline and diesel prices. We just got our first batch of inflation data that incorporates this, with the headline consumer price index (CPI) rising 0.9% in March (equivalent to an 11% annualized pace). The …

News of a potential ceasefire deal hit Tuesday evening, and markets didn’t wait around. The S&P 500 surged 2.5% on Wednesday, the Dow gained 2.85%, and the Nasdaq rallied 2.8%. The S&P 500 is now down less than 1% year-to-date. The Dow is actually in the green. That’s the good news, and it’s worth acknowledging. …

The crisis in the Middle East is in week six right now, and it’s not hyperbole to say that the world is on the edge of an energy crisis. Oil prices have surged over the past several weeks, with the price of WTI (the US benchmark) surging over $100/barrel last week—it was at $65/barrel on …

The recent market pullback has offered a useful reminder: in certain environments, traditional safe havens don’t behave the way you’d expect. Since the Middle East conflict escalated on February 27, both bonds and gold have failed to provide much cushion, and understanding why matters more than the headline. Bonds: The Inflation Problem Treasury yields have …

Life is transitory, and so are inflation shocks (caveat: on a long enough timeline). The Federal Reserve (Fed) held rates steady in the 3.50-3.75 range at its March meeting, as expected. But all eyes were on the Fed’s updated Summary of Economic Projections (the “dot plot”), where each of 19 members jot down their estimates …

Let me start here: if inflation averages 2% over 10 years, that translates to an 18% cumulative loss of purchasing power, i.e., $10,000 of a typical basket of goods and services today would cost $12,190 in a decade. If inflation averages 3% over 10 years, that translates to a 26% cumulative loss of purchasing power, …

The February payroll report was an ugly one, and a bit of a mess. The economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, whereas forecasters projected a gain of 55,000.  We saw significant revisions for the last two months as well: December payrolls were revised down by 65,000, from +48,000 to -17,000. January payrolls were revised down …